Butter-Pecan Kringle

Brother has been posting left and right showcasing his cooking abilities. I thought it was about time I posted a baking post. He's not the only one in the family who knows his way around a kitchen.

A couple of weeks ago Dave brought some pecans home from his office that were a gift from a vendor. The women in the office decided that the best thing to do with them was to send them home with Dave and let me bake something for them. I was all about that. Especially since that very week King Arthur's blog, The Baker's Banter, had showcased a recipe starring of all things pecans. It was meant to be.

Today's experiment in baking is a Butter-Pecan Kringle. From what I understand this is a Wisconsin treat found in many bakeries at Christmas time. Is that true, Brother? I read the blog post and determined that this recipe was doable. After reading through the comments I determined I would make one change involving my one of favorite products. More on that later.

The cast of characters minus that favorite product. More on that later.




First things first. I needed to make the base which is essentially a pie dough. It's then formed into a ring on a parchment covered baking sheet. Notice it is essential that an official '72 Reds ruler is used to make that perfect sized circle. Essential.




Next I made a pastry topping and spread it over my perfectly formed pastry ring. Thank you, '72 Reds ruler.




It baked in the oven for about an hour and came out a nice golden color. So far so good.




Now it was time for my secret ingredient.




The original recipe called for caramels. After reading through the blog comments it seemed that after the caramels were melted and spread on the kringle the resulting caramel topping was somewhat hard. Dulce de leche to the rescue. I'll just make my own caramel. The only problem was the boiling time. I decided to try three hours and see if it would thicken up enough to make a nice thick coating on the kringle. I opened my can and poured it on my perfectly formed pastry ring. Ummmm. Could have used some more boiling time. The taste was a ten, the spreading consistency a seven. I would have like it to stick a little bit more. The next time I will try boiling the milk for four hours.

After the caramel came the pecans.




One last step. A glaze drizzled over the top and my kringle was done.




I have to give it a nine. The next time I will try to make a thicker caramel and thicker glaze. Other than that though it was really good. I understand Dave's office really enjoyed it.

If you are interested in recreating this Wisconsin treat yourself the recipe can be found at the Baker's Banter, http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2009/11/30/oh-my-goodness-butter-pecan-kringle/

Happy Baking!

Dinner (Rolls) or Disaster?

es, it is time for another installment of Dinner or Disaster. Yesterday I decided to try Pioneer Woman's Buttered Rosemary Rolls. Do I have your attention? I sure had Dave's when I told him what I was baking last night.

First things first. I had to purchase my second piece of cast iron (Lodge, of course) for this recipe. I know what you are thinking. What does a cast iron pan have to do with dinner rolls? In Pioneer Woman's world everything. And now in my world .... everything.

I'm not even going to make you wait until the end of this post for the verdict on this recipe. Five forks!

Now that you know the ending let's go back to the beginning.

One new well-seasoned pan filled with frozen bread rolls.




Three hours later I had this.




I have to admit I cheated a little. I warmed the oven up a little bit and let the rolls rise inside. The house was cold and I knew they weren't going to get to where they needed to be by dinner time.

I should have left well enough alone and baked them but I thought I would let them rise for a few more minutes and then promptly forgot about them. An hour later I remembered I had rolls rising in the oven and found this.







Next time I will be a little more vigilant.

No matter. It was time to enhance these rolls with melted butter, fresh rosemary and coarse sea salt. I then just popped those little babies in the oven for 18 minutes and ended up with this.




Can I just say, "Wow!" They tasted as good as they looked. Dave gave them five forks and then promptly ate half of them with his chili that night.

Pioneer Woman, you have a winner! I loved the taste of the salt with the butter. I have been on a salt kick lately and these fit the bill nicely. Ask me sometime about the salted chocolate I have been eating. Yummy!!

If you care to make these yourself, and why wouldn't you, here is the recipe.

Buttered Rosemary Rolls

Ingredients
Frozen, Unbaked Dinner Rolls
Melted Butter, Regular, Salted
Fresh Rosemary, Coarsely Chopped
Coarse Sea Salt

Preparation Instructions

Spray a small iron skillet with cooking spray (or coat with olive oil). Place frozen rolls in the skillet, leaving plenty of room for rising. Cover and allow to rise for several hours.

After rising, brush rolls with melted butter.

Sprinkle on chopped rosemary. Brush with additional butter.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Bake according to roll package directions (usually 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes), until rolls are a deep golden brown on top.

Serve skillet on the table.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/10/buttered-rosemary-rolls/


Now go forth and bake.

Dulce de Leche Brioche Rolls

It is now time to show you what I planned on doing with the dulce de leche that I had made earlier that day. I was going to attempt to make brioche rolls. These tend to be a little involved and I wasn't sure I was up to the challenge. In fact, I started them on a Saturday and finished them the following day. I found the recipe on a blog called Tartelette which can be found at tartelette.blogspot.com. This recipe is from an entry dated 3.06.07. Go browse her blog at your own risk but don't say I didn't warn you.

Here is a photo I took from her blog of what the final product should look like.





All good recipes must include these two ingredients and this recipe is no exception.









Since this is a bread recipe warm water, warm milk, dry yeast, flour, sugar, and salt were also involved. Everything was mixed and kneaded



and then it was time to let it rise. This included multiple risings in and out of the refrigerator.





This was the final result.





Then it was time to roll the dough out into a rectangle. Cream cheese and my beloved dulce de leche were spread over the dough.





That was rolled into a log and then cut into 12 pieces and placed in a nine inch round pan.





I placed the dough back in the refrigerator for the night. In the morning I had this to show for all of my hard work.





After baking in the oven this was my final result.





I admit hers look better and probably taste better too. They weren't terrible but the caramel and cream cheese that had been rolled in the log had sunk to the bottom of the pan. I thought more of that would have stayed in the roll itself. I have to give these a 2.5 out of 5. I may give them another try at some future date.

But because the dulce de leche is sooooo good I had to find another recipe to try. This time Dulce de Leche Brownies that I found on davidlebovitz.com. He is an American living in Paris who has written numerous cookbooks. His specialty is chocolate and more chocolate. Visit his site at your own risk. Here is the final result.





Again not what I was hoping for. They were a little too sweet even for me. I think I needed to bake them a little longer too. I liked the outsides better than the middle. Plus I think a thicker caramel consistancy would have worked better. Another that I may try again in the future.

In the meantime my quest for the perfect Dulce de Leche recipe continues.

Dulce De Leche

I am betting you don't know what dulce de leche is but after you read this post you will be running to the store to buy this:





You will then take the label off and place the can in a pot of boiling water. You must, must make sure that the can is always completely covered with water. I did have to add water to the pot to keep the can covered with water. I will not be responsible for what could happen if you don't follow my directions. Now you will boil this for about two hours, give or take a half hour either way.





Remove the can from the water and let it cool. Once it is cool you can store it for months in the cupboard. Or do what I do which is open it as soon as possible. Why you ask? Because this is the result of your hard labor.





The best caramel known to man or woman.

When researching this on the net I did find other methods of making this that didn't involve the possibility of exploding cans but the consensus seemed to be as long as the can is always covered with water the risk of the can exploding is quite small. The cooking time can vary too. I saw cooking times anywhere from 90 minutes to three hours. The longer the cooking time, the thicker and darker the caramel. I cooked mine 2 hours and 15 minutes which included the water coming to a boil.

The reason for making dulce de leche? You will just have to wait for my next post to see what I did with my non-exploding can of sweetened condensed milk.

Get Your Head In The Game

Well, guess what time it is, people? Yes, it is Cookie of the Month time. This month's star is called Superdoodles. Now I am sure most of you are familiar with Snickerdoodles. If not, they are a crunchy, cinnamon based cookie. Superdoodles are Snickerdoodles times two. What could be wrong with that? A lot, but we shall get to that later. First, the cast of charachters.




Are you paying attention? I bet not, but as you will see in a bit neither was I. Next up, let's get this cast of charachters mixed together.




So far, so good. And now into the oven for eleven minutes.




When they came out of the oven they looked perfect. Looked would be the operative word here. They were slightly golden and perfectly round. I like it when my cookies look as good as they taste. See how good they look.





Looking good is nice but how they taste is more important. As soon as the first batch had cooled just enough to eat, I sample one. Ahhh, wait a minute. This doesn't seem right. This isn't the cinnamon nirvana I was expecting. In fact, this tastes like coffee. What the heck!?! I quickly dug through the garbage to find the cinnamon chip bag and look what I found.



Yes, I used the wrong chips. If you had been observant, unlike me, you would see them hiding in the cast of charachters. What to do now? The second cookie sheet was in the oven and the rest of the dough was still in the mixing bowl. There was no saving them. I decided to carry on. They aren't bad, just not what I was expecting. When D came home I had him sample one without telling him what had happened. He liked them. Anyway, they are going out as is. One of these months I plan on baking them again, but with the correct chips this time.

In the meantime, someone will be enjoying these cappacino flavored Superdoodles sometime next week. I wrote everyone's name on a slip of paper and threw them in front of Jo. The one I dug out of her mouth was the winner. Thanks for playing along and see you next month with a new Cookie of the Month.

Well, Look What Happens When You...

use the right ingredients! If you remember, I made cheese bread awhile ago and was disappointed in how the dough was working for me. Or should I say not working. Well, The King Arthur Flour Comapany where I had gotten the recipe had seen my blog and had suggested that I may have used the wrong kind of yeast. Who knew that regular and fast acting yeast were not interchangeable? Well, today was the do over day and I must say it went much better. My starter was perfect this time.





And the resulting bread? Well, just see for yourself.





Much better than my first attempt. I will be bringing the results to Coleman with me tomorrow.

My faithful readers should recognize this:





Yes, that is the ten yards of mulch we had delivered last Saturday. Between then and now D has mulched a few trees and I have mulched some flower beds.













I can't tell you how many wheelbarrows of mulch I have moved this week but it is a lot. The hard part is the mulch was on one side of the property and the beds on the other. The good news is it has been unusually cool this week which made for good gardening weather. The mulch pile now looks like this. Looks like we will be having another truck delivered when we get back from vacation. Now that is something to look forward to!





And while I was doing all the baking and mulching, this is what Jo has been doing. Where have I gone wrong?

Grip It and Rip It!

Yes, today was a day of baking. My not that much younger brother may be king of his grill but I am queen of my oven. I don't enjoy day to day cooking all that much but I do love baking. Every month dad gets a box of cookies in the mail. I have been doing that for a few years now and I don't think I have repeated a recipe yet. Along the way I have found some good recipes and some not so good ones but it is always fun to try something new every month.

Today's experiment was bread, Gruyere Cheese Bread to be exact. I found this recipe on the King Arthur website not too long ago and have been waiting for the right time to try it. Today was the day. It has been cloudy and rainy all day so it was the perfect day to stay in and bake some bread.

Because this bread requires a starter I began yesterday.




And today I finished and baked it.








This bread is best eaten warm out of the oven. In fact, just grip it and rip it. I thought it was good. I think I will give it four spatulas out of five. My starter and dough never looked like the pictures. I'm not sure why. I am wondering if my flour is old. I think the next time I am going to get King Arthur's bread flour and see if that doesn't make a difference.

If interested the recipe can be found here (with pictures!).

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2008/03/28/hot-cheese-bread-grip-it-and-rip-it/

Next up, cinnamon bread. Yum!